Without the Cracks
by Netherwood
Summary: Older sister with broken mind, thrown screaming into the darkness. Younger sister perfect and raised up in her place. Face to face, there could be no greater difference between them, but they started out-exactly-the-same-


_A/N: I find the weirdest things when I go diving into old hard drives. I'm not even sure how many years ago it was that I wrote this. Definitely before FEAR 3, possibly even before FEAR 2._

_Disclaimer: First Encounter Assault Recon does not belong to me. I'm just playing, and I'll put it back where I found it when I'm done, assuming Alma doesn't use me to redecorate the room in copious amounts of red before I get away._

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**Without the Cracks**

**by Netherwood**

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Alma watches as her son, her oldest son, her beautiful baby, runs through the halls with that woman—protecting her, guiding her (his eyes soften when he looks back at the woman, Alma could tell, even though no one else could because he hid his face like cops and robbers on the playground). What was so special about _her_, why did Alma's own son look at _her _like that (no one's ever looked at me like that, no one but mommy and daddy, and mommy is gone and gone and gone and daddy did awful things and never meant it when he looked at me). Her baby should be _better _than this, should be obedient and look at his mother with those eyes, not run away when she wants him to come home, when she needs to hold her baby and never let go and push away all the others, all the ones that did this to them, and burn them and make them beg and cry until they KNOW what they did to her.

She needs her baby, so that woman, the one he's so close to, she has to go (go forever, go away, go to hell, go to the DOCTOR to have her skin pulled off). She'll take the woman away so her baby doesn't see her make the woman GO AWAY because he would hate her even more. She waits, and waits, looking for the perfect time to pull them apart. They're in the elevator, running away, running away together (bad children are punished, father taught her that, bad children who scream in their sleep and scare the other children and know what they're thinking have to GO to their ROOM, dark and wet and silent with a lock keeping out all the light like a vault) so the woman will have to be punished like a bad child. He's protecting her, tearing up room after room with a ballet of bullets dancing like toy store windup dolls, anyone can see how STRONG and brave her baby is. Alma reaches out and pulls the wires and the buttons and makes the elevator stop at just the right time. The woman whines as her baby goes to fix the problem (she doesn't love MY BABY, she can't SEE how beautiful he is, his face will be the last thing I shove into her mind as I peel her apart so she can KNOW). She steps into the elevator just as her baby fixes the power and the lights, she lets him see one glimpse and pound the glass in anger (don't be angry, please don't be angry, don't don't don't, please love me, pleasepleaseplease!) as the elevator doors snap closed.

They're alone now, Alma and the dead woman.

The woman screams once and trips over herself when she sees the girl next to her, but Alma does not strike. She ignores the words as the woman catches herself (where did you come from, how did you get here, are you lost, seriously how the hell did you get in here) and looks and looks. The woman is pale and pretty and familiar like a looking glass that isn't cracked or left in dark corners or kicked or beaten or set on fire or dropped and hated or left screaming with nightmares in the night, and suddenly Alma needs to know more, know why this girl is a looking glass. She came here to rip and tear and watch with delight as the woman blossomed into split-second flowers as the blood bloomed from her skeleton and wilted to the floor and walls and ceilings and Alma's own dress, don't forget how it feels warm and bubbly when the spray hits her dress, but instead she reaches out takes the woman's head, and peels away the thinnest layers protecting her mind.

"_Happy birthday dear Alice, happy birthday to you!"_

_Alma looked around at the streamers and the balloons. She knew this place, from a lifetime before she slept and died and slept and died and... This was Home, this was the shiny white walls (no blood on these walls) of the kitchen, this was the place mommy had let Alma make cookies to draw her away from the nightmares and the dark dark thoughts. The table was different, newer, bigger and darker wood, but this was Home._

_Daddy leaned forward and pushed the cake toward her, its eight blue candles sputtering and dropping wax onto the lime-green icing (Alma's eighth birthday was going to have pink icing, mommy promised, but she never saw it before she went to her Room). "Go on, Munchkin, blow out the candles!"_

_Alma stared. She wanted her eighth birthday. Mommy had promised her rocky road with her cake. But this wasn't her birthday, was it?_

"_Make wish before you blow, Alice!" mommy says while she holds the camera ready._

_This is in _that woman's_ head. This is _that woman's_ birthday. WHY IS THAT WOMAN IN MY HOUSE?_

_Alma leaned forward and blew out the candles in a single breath._

The woman is curled up on herself, sobbing from how much it hurts when Alma puts her hands inside her brain and jiggles everything until something comes loose. Alma doesn't care, she has to know, so she reaches in again and starts shaking.

_Alma waited in the slow-moving line. The tight curtains to either side made her dizzy as they clung to her and as the silk wavered in the darkness at the slightest touch. She stayed up, though, because this was a memory, and that woman didn't fall as she stood in line between curtains back then._

"_Alice Wade, bachelor's of science in chemistry."_

_Alma's legs jerked forward, and she emerged into the bright light and walked across the stage. The crowd clapped—so many, why so many, what do they want, why are they looking at me?—and daddy's lined and gray face stood out from all the faceless bodies making noise at her. He was proud. He was proud. He was proud of this woman._

_Then, reaching as far back as she could, Alma realized what this was—she went to daddy's graduation when she was four. It was long and boring and hot, but daddy smiled and said, "I'm a doctor now, sweetheart" at the end and took her out for ice cream._

"_Can you fix people when they break now?" she had asked her daddy once they were munching their chocolate chip cookie dough cones._

"_I hope so," daddy said, and licked the bit trying to dribble down the side of the cone._

"_Will you fix me?"_

_Daddy hadn't looked at her, but oh-so-quietly said, "I hope so, sweetheart."_

_Alma snapped out of her own vision, back to this woman's memory insteady. She reached out, and took the piece of paper the bored man handed her. That's it. The woman was graduating._

_Alma had wanted to be a doctor, before she found out being a doctor meant daddy couldn't fix anyone._

She pulled back; the woman lay on the elevator floor like a fish struggling to find water before it drowns in air. Daddy was proud of the woman. Daddy celebrated her birthdays and went to her graduation and didn't send her to her Room to scream and scream and scream in the darkness in her mind while her body slept and died. Daddy loved her.

You took my life.

Give it back.

Alma knelt over the woman again, head in hands. Alma, she whispers. Alma, Alma, my name is Alma. You took Alma's life, you're living Alma's life, give it back to me!

Guilt and malice and guilt and confession and guilt and shame. Where is it? You took my life! Where is it? Where's the guilt? When did daddy tell you to take my life, when did he tell you to be his daughter? Where is it?

Alma hit the woman's mind again, waiting to see when the guilt and shame and malice and confession would come falling out.

It didn't.

The woman had never heard the name Alma before.

The woman didn't know she had a sister.

She slumps as Alma lets her fall.

You're living my life… (and you don't even know it).

Nightmares and anger and hearing the whispers from their minds and screaming in the dark… kept me from living _your_ life.

You're my looking glass. Without the cracks.

Alma reached down into Alice's head again—but this time, she moved as gently as she could, and she scooped out everything Alice knew about this elevator, about seeing Alma, about writhing in pain. She pulled out the memory and let it drift into nothing. This will be even less than a bad dream when Alice wakes up again.

Alma looked around the building until she found her baby (my beautiful baby, be good to him please) and so-gently put Alice just ahead of him.

They deserve to die, all of them, she whispers in Alice's ear before she flits away as her baby comes. You deserve to die. But I don't want to kill you anymore, sister. If you run away, run away so fast so far and never stop no matter what, you might escape. Don't come back.

Go live my life.

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...


End file.
